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Talk:Tristan Milligan/@comment-4711739-20140709144132
Okay, here it is. I've been wanting to write this essay for a while now, but now's the first time I got the chance. Tristan is and will always be one of my favorite Degrassi characters of all time. As a gay male, I never really identified with Marco or Riley. The only gay character I could relate to up until New Beginnings was Fiona. But when Tristan came onto the show, sweet niblits my life changed. He came on in around February of 2012 and I was an 8th grader, still not too focused with my sexuality, but definitely interested in men although I would tell people I was straight. I immediately identified with Tristan because if you all don't know, I'm flamboyant as shit and am the biggest "flamer" you'll ever meet; just like Tris. His first plot about Tori ditching him for Zig came about the time my one close friend at the time kept ditching me for her boyfriend, so I started to love Tristan even more because unlike me; he had the balls to confront his friend about it. Then for the summer block of Season 12, Tristan had that long plot arc where he played a homosexual in Romeo and Jules and didn't want his first kiss to be staged. At that point, I was starting to come out as bi to some of my friends and I remember watching Tristan and being jealous of how open he was. I also identified with him not wanting a staged first kiss because I was a lip virgin at the time and felt the exact same way as him. It was around then that I started syaing Tristan was a favorite of mine. The fall block of Season 12, I was just finally out as gay and not bi to my whole school but it wasn't really that big of a deal because everyone figured anyway. At that point, I was obsessed with finding a boyfriend since my other gay friend was going through them like mad and I was jealous. Like Tristan, I was chubby and skipping meals and totally failing at working out and losing weight. When I saw his heart attack plot, I stopped though and seeing that Tris ended up not with the guy, I figured the same would happen to me and quit with the crash dieting. Flash forward to the summer of '13. Before the season started, I had an OBSESSION with Lyle's new hair and style and started getting really invested in Tristan again. I was in love with my best friend and here's Tristan kissing Miles which somewhat gave me hope (hence my Triles shipping days). That didn't work out and I really felt for Tristan as he lost yet another guy to Maya Matlin because in my life, I lost the guy to my best friend. So in Cannonball, I really felt for Tristan because I knew exactly what he was going through. Now for Tristan's current and biggest plot. If you guys remember, I was talking to a 23 year old last summer and almost dated/fooled around with him. It didn't happen though because he ended up moving away. I was so fed up with all my friends telling me how wrong it was to want to be with him so I TOTALLY understood Tristan's feelings of this as well (don't get me wrong, Yilligan is nasty af, I just understand Tris' thinking). The fight scene with Maya, damn. I could relate to EVERY FUCKING WORD that came out of Tristan's mouth. I know how it feels to be in that headspace he was in. I've watched that scene more times than I can count and it's probably my 5th favorite scene from this show of all time. I know what it's like to be that guy who's the only single one in the room, or the third wheel constantly, or to have the one chance at love taken away from you, and it's not fun. So in my eyes, Tristan's actions are all justified and last night bumped Tristan from my 8th favorite to my 5th favorite Degrassi character of all time. I didn't write that to whine and complain about the shit that's happened to me because I'm mostly over all of it at this point. I just want you guys to understand why I love Tristan so much because I've been seeing (not so much on here, but other sites) that Tristan fans are being singled out and bashed so here's just my take on things, coming from someone that can share basically all their life experiences with this character.